Evening

Series/Themes: Korean Cinema Series, Women in Film Focus

Genre: Documentaries

Film Year: 2022

Locations: USA

Film Length: 82 min.

Languages: English, Korean

Director: So Yun Um

Featuring: So Yun Um, Hae Sup Um, Danny Park, May Park, Mark Burton

Preceded by short film GOOD BOY.

Liquor Store Dreams follows director So Yun Um and her friend Danny, both self-titled “Liquor Store Babies,” children of Korean immigrant parents who operate liquor stores in Los Angeles. As second-generation immigrants, So and Danny are on their own journeys to fulfilling their creative dreams. So sets out to be a filmmaker (to her father’s bemusement), while Danny works his dream job at Nike. Their aspirations are family lives are presented in a larger context of Korean-Black relations in Los Angeles, indelibly linked to the the 1991 murder of Latasha Harlins in a Korean convenience store, and the 1992 uprisings sparked by the police brutality against Rodney King and ensuing looting of Korean businesses. Refreshingly honest and eye-opening, gently comical, and universally empathetic, Liquor Store Dreams is a fascinating personal narrative mapped onto a painful chapter in American history.

Introduction by Ty Cooper (VAFF)